Gabe White Pistol Shooting Solutions
Ready for your “graduate course?”
Gabe demonstrates how to fire effectively from awkward positions.
Gabe challenges student Lynn Givens during a run. Stress is part of the game.
When Gabe White first trained with me in the early 2000s, he was already well along the way to mastering the handgun. Gathering much training in a broad funnel, he filtered and distilled it into two areas. The first was the stratospheric level of personal skill he exhibited after becoming one of the very few people to shoot a perfect score on Bill Rogers’ legendary Advanced Course (and the only one to ever do it from concealment). The other, the one we’ll discuss here, is the curriculum he crafted and now teaches — Pistol Shooting Solutions.
“Shooting and moving means honing gun-handling skills at the same time.”
Mission Statement
Gabe explains, “My focus here is nuanced performance adapted to tactics, instead of just tactics.” His motto is “technical excellence supports tactical preparedness,” and he lives up to the credo in every minute of his “20-hours-in-two-days” program. We’ve all been to classes where there was more downtime than trigger or learning time; Gabe’s approach is the polar opposite. He has down-to-the-minute efficiency in running his classes. The student body is limited to 14 shooters (two relays of seven), and the “down” relay has exactly enough time to refill magazines and swig some water before the “up” relay is finished and it’s time to return to the firing line. You’ll need to bring 1,000 rounds and enough magazines to have at least 65 on your person each time you come to the line.
“Such an improvement, my friends, is a quantum leap and rock-solid proof White’s methods work if followed.”
Overview
Cornerstone drills are, Gabe notes, “plausible engagement situations” which also drive technical skill work. All are at 7 yards from the holster starting with hands clear and include Bill Wilson’s original Bill Drill (six shots from the leather, hoping for all hits in the A-zone of an IPSC silhouette in two seconds), a Failure Drill (2 body/1 head in 1.7 seconds), the Immediate Incapacitation Drill (two to the head in 2 seconds), and finally a Split Bill Drill (4 body/2 head), hoping for 2.6 seconds to make all perfect hits.
Par time is 8.30 seconds. You get a quarter second bonus advantage per run if you draw from concealment or from a security holster. Every point outside the center zone costs added time, a complete miss being a pricy 2 seconds.
Sweaty, dirty, bloody fingers from loading magazines — but happy and proud in
this graduating class photo. Picture yourself there with them.
A Tough Row to Hoe
Will you make those times? Probably not. Exactly six people at this writing have made all those times for all four drills out of the hundreds of students who’ve taken this class. Those who do earn the coveted “Turbo Pin.” The point is, all 14 of us in the class came a helluva lot closer to those lofty goals after training with Gabe than we would’ve before!
This is strictly a “run-with-the-big-dogs” proposition. Puppies shouldn’t apply. Gabe makes it clear you want your gun safety and gun handling skills, especially from the holster, down pat before you get there. Unsafe shooters get kicked out of class. Fortunately, there were no safety violations in the class I took. The 10 men and 4 women who took the program were uniformly pleased with the value received and the improvement experienced.
Target Shooting
The Means, Not the End
Gabe adheres to the old saying “good shooting is 10 percent physical and 90 percent mental.” After decades of teaching my own students to be task-oriented instead of goal-oriented, I was pleased to hear Gabe emphasize, “Focus on the process, not the outcome.” Gabe pounds on the importance of constant dry fire for skill development.
The proof of this was seen in our class as Chris Kossman, 30, easily ranked as Top Shot at the end. Chris wrote later in pistol-forum.com his first class with Gabe in February of 2018 resulted in a 10.59-second cumulative score on the four core drills. Not bad, but he took it seriously and practiced diligently. At the class I attended the following September, Chris scored 8.44 seconds. Such an improvement, my friends, is a quantum leap and rock-solid proof White’s methods work if followed.
I join a growing cadre of serious handgunners and fellow instructors who strongly recommend taking training from Gabe White. You’ll find his schedule and complete info at http://www.gabewhitetraining.com.
